Alfundo Gets Heat Stroke 7/22//07

Drive into Allentown like 1am. Had to check about 8 hotels for a room. What the hell was going on in Allentown that night?

Arrived to Dorney about 11am. Very hot. Grabbed a locker in WWK, and stole 2 chairs by the old wave pool. Did I mention the heat?

Decided to leave WWK for awhile, and return when the lines to the slide towers weren't to the ground.

Hit Talon, wait was 2 trains. Grabbed the front as a single rider. 8/10. Took gf and ride Hydra. Forgot to mention the corkscrew out of the station. Good ride. Not worth losing Hercules. 8/10. Walk on. Disturbing for a newer ride.

Down the hill. Hit the Whip, Dominator, Wild Mouse 8/10, Zephyr, and Thunderhawk (2 train wait)8/10. Stooped back the Game Day Grille. It was nice int he a/c, but the food was marginal. 6/10. Service was like lightning, though. Must have been the pre-cooked food.

Into the waterpark about 3pm. Still big lines. A code brown closed the older wave pool. Code brown means some nice urbanite pooped in the pool, fyi. Went to the new pool. Saw a nice set of hair extensions floating by. Who books these groups?

First attraction was the Runaway River. Very large girl trying to take photos for sale. She caused a back up of course. The Riptide Run. I like this ride. 9/10. I think I rode the red Patriots Plunge. Nice. 7/10.

Back to the old wave pool, and a nap. Tried the pizza, an another $4 Mt Dew. Before changing, hit Thunder Canyon. I am not sure what the ops guys do, but moving the lines there aren't on their checklist. Why hasn't Cedar Fair taken this Barr Engineering meathead ride and upgraded it with a rotating station? Someone explain. But, you do get soaked. 8/10.

Took the Cedar Creek Canonball. The train had better justice at Cedar Point. Where does this ride go? One lousy circle. Its time to make it a functional people mover.

Into the park, and actually waited about 20 minutes for the Revolution. No one to push the ops again. Slow loading. Too many fatties in the end seats. Musical seats means AJ gets cranky in line. Then to the Road Rally. I loved this at the Point, and loved driving them again.

Then to Laser. I love the sound, missing the Laser Loop at Kennywood. Too bad its the last season. Crew was on the ball. 9/10. 3 train wait. Goodbye Laser. Then to Steel Force. I rode this the first year it opened, and it still rides good as new. 9.5/10. 2 train wait. Good crew.

Overall 8/10. It was like Africa Hot, but no lines in the park in the daytime. I also liked the mix of foreign staff with retirees working. It made a pleasant experience on Dominator and the Whip.

Has anyone confirmed the removal of the Laser? Sounds odd that they would want to create another empty hole down there....after finally filling the Skyscraper hole with SV.

But, it does fit Cedar Fair's style to add a new(or in this case, used) crappy ride in place of a better classic Dorney ride.

I.E. Hydra for Hercules and Screamin Swing for Skyscraper.

I will tell you what, I will not go near a raft ride with one of those stations. What a disaster. They allow the ride ops AND guests to just take their time and triple the wait time. Love that ride though, its all waterfalls and is really unpredictable. Probably the best I have ever been on, too bad I have only been on it once.

I am on the record as loving Superman from Geauga Lake. Its a shame about the Laser, but it will find a good home in another park. The Laser served Dorney well in its day.

Dorney is lucky to at least get decent coasters, and no stinkers. Another point is that Steve 'whatever' who worked for Arrow did the track layout for Ron Toomer. When he jumped ship to Morgan, the much improved track is noticeable with the computer assisted engineering. Much smoother.

I am not sure what Cedar Fair was thinking when they went 'Barr' at Dorney and ValleyFair!. That loading process is uncalled for, and probably allowed the price break that was needed to get the contract.

When you by a River Rapids Ride, you buy Intamin. Period.

I've never heard of Barr until I saw they made T.C...

I still hope it's not true about Laser. I heard numerous reports of refurbishments for next season. Is all this speculation based on the add for the double-looping Swarzkopf for sale? It could also be Lagoon's ride.

And, no if it is Laser for sale, it's not going to find a good home in another park....it will either be melted down or end up in a 3rd world country. Zonga(Thriller) was just sold after being for sale for years, and that's on it's way to Mexico. Parks in the US are not intrested in these older steel coasters, as good as the old Swarzkopfs are, they're aging and just don't appeal to most park operators.

One of these coasters would be perfect at Knoebels, but they've got their funds tied up with the Flying Turns, and they usualy go at least 5-10 years between major additions....so I wouldn't expect anything else major there for years to come.

I hate the loading on Thunder Canyon. Besides a non rotating station, the ops determine how many boats to load. The station can load 6 boats but they rarely run all 6. They were only running 3 out of 6 loading areas (the other 3 boats went out empty each cycle), despite the line being over 20 minutes and getting more crowded. They also never load 8 people into a boat which unfortunately is good for riders but bad for capacity because it's very cramped with a full boat.

As for Cedar Creek Cannonball. It used to be a much longer circuit and stop at Wildwater Kingdom so you didn't have to walk but they shortened the track and made it a full circuit ride when Talon was built.

Did they have a lot of cars on Road Rally? Last week I was there and they had a total of 4 cars on the track. Needless to say the line probably didn't move much. *** Edited 8/22/2007 1:14:54 AM UTC by YoshiFan***

Road Rally had about 5 cars running, and they added 2 more at night. They had 1 really striking foreign blond doing most of the work, while the other guys stood and watched mostly. At CP, those cars came in and out continously. None of this stop all the cars and load then all leave.

Yeah, I think Road Rally's a waste of space...they honestly said, ok, were building this ride called Raptor that will reduce the size of our car ride, so let's send the extra cars to Dorney and slap in the crappiest, shortest, most un-scenic antique car ride in history.

Why in the heck wouldn't that other coaster be Lagoon's? The ride ops listen to other people that come to the park, and they think like those people because people tell them these things. "Hey ride op, did you hear that Laser is going away." "No, I didn't hear that at all." The ride op finds out from someone else that, "Laser is being demolished for good." The ride op now thinks that Laser is gone for good.

alfundo is ok tho :P

and the rumor of lasers demise has been around for years. I believe the coaster for sale is Lagoons.

AJ says "Goodbye Laser", I'm pretty tempted to believe him...

P.S. Steve Okamoto...aka, the guy who's helping us get a Flying Turns... :)

According to what I found, the proper spelling of the the company who made Thunder Rapids is "Bahr," and they're a German company. Does anyone know if they are still in business? I wasn't able to find anything.

While you may not like the loading system, it's a lot more compact than an Intamin rapids ride, and therefore, maybe that's why they were chosen instead.

I love the laser, i really hope they don't remove it. And about Thunder Canyon. I agree with everyone else about the need for a rotating station and a better crew.I once waited about 1 1/2 for the ride. Never again.

Intamin Fan, Barr Engineering is an American company:
http://www.barr.com

By the way, they are responsible for the rapids ride at Islands of Adventure, so they probably could have built a higher capacity ride if Dorney wanted it. *** Edited 8/27/2007 1:05:37 AM UTC by person***

^ According to that link, Barr does stuff related to water, but not anything vaguely related to amusement park rapids rides.

RGB, if you click on the bottom link on the left side of that page, you will see that they do offer services to amusement parks. There is a PDF about whitewater raft rides.

According to rcdb.com, (http://rcdb.com/id240.htm) the Laser is still there. It doesn't say anything about removal.

I stand corrected, person. I see it now under "other areas." Thanks for pointing it out.

I was enthralled by the tabs under sustainable landscape architecture and watershed management. Maybe CF can hire them to do some sustainable landscaping at Dorney.